I went on to MySpace
And discovered I was snoring.
I moved on to Facebook
And found some were boring
But I found myself learning
Things I previously didn’t know
So maybe social media is
Not such a bad place to go.
Of course, we made Zuckerberg
A fracking multi-billionaire;
Richer than that clown in DC
With the orange face and hair.
But maybe that is Free Enterprise
The way it should always be;
The people that invent things
Can buy five thousand of me.

So, okay, Entrepreneurs, Inc.
I doff my hat at your energy
And your sense of adventure
And  most lucrative sensibility.
I’m sure if I had thought of it
I’d have done the same thing.
So here is your deserved applause
While you polish your brass ring.
I have no envy or rage for you
Because you have done so well
As long as a sense of privilege
Doesn’t drive us all to hell.
Sadly, that is what we see
Happening to the very rich.
They seem to indulge themselves
And leave the rest of us in a ditch.

So, Facebook has been good to me
And while I decry some of their stuff
A lot of the ******* I hear about it
Is quite obviously air-headed guff.
Yes, there’s a lot of data involved
And that will always be a threat
But, staying up on current news
Of things I have learned not to forget.
I watched the social changes, and
Heard from family and friends
As well as being warned of scams
And noticed styles and trends.
So, I won’t jump on Zuckerberg
And make like he is the very devil
When half of congress and DC
Are completely given over to evil.

I want to write such words
That can reach out and teach,
And share with the world
What I have found on beaches
And mountain passes, in cities
And the countrysides, like music;
Lilting songs without tunes
But such that please any critic
And help them learn to sing
Even when there is no melody,
Experiences that changes them
To symphonies from threnodies.

I want to help everybody hear
The jigs and tarantellas here
Made from words that keep
Their lively memory very near,
That we may subtly hear it
And love it and treasure
Every beat, rest and thought
In every verbal measure,
So they can ride along with
An orchestra often unheard:
The precious gift to us all,
The magnificent spoken word.

I have set my sights on this,
The mission I have chosen
And shall make it my quest to
Insure my stride is not broken.
Not everyone is given the gift
To say what they deeply feel,
It falls to those who can speak
To show others what is real,
Or what may just be tinsel
And what is golden, or wrong.
Thus is the fate of our poets
To parse it in poetry and song.

I survived K-12 schooling
I read and researched a lot
I went to political meetings
I investigated social ***.
I met with some politicians
And then sterilized my hands.
Anyone who has ever met them
Will instantly understand.

Then an idiot ran for office
And I told myself he wouldn’t win
And that was when I wanted
The Big Do-Over to begin.
Because that idiot was picked
To be the Mutton In Chief
When it was widely known
He was a serial adulterer, liar,
Cheater, embezzler and thief.

He immediately set about
Instilling high dollar nepotism
By using his offsprings as proxies
And promulgating social schism.
He thinks he is the role model
Everyone else should follow
When someone else talks like that,
He finds them hard to swallow.

All he really wants is worship
Because he thinks he’s a god.
He doesn’t recognize he is crazy,
He can’t see his behavior as odd.
He’s the modern-day Caligula,
But he won't accept that of course,
Even though he has appointed
Crooks that are the back of a horse.

So, let’s have a do-over now!
Let's put someone trained in place
Of an overdress orangutan
With an big fat orange face.
Let’s put someone in there
That is and intelligent  human.
Oh, I have an idea, everyone.
Let’s elect to the job a woman!

You didn’t notice
Because
You didn’t know us.
You were above us
Because
You didn’t love us.
You found us boring
So you were ignoring
As we suffered neglect
But yet
You demanded respect.
That we couldn’t detect
The love you didn’t reflect
Because
To you we were pains
All the proof that remained
When no profit was gained
Yet you moan about paying
Because
We're all still staying
Here around the family
Where there are no homilies
That save you from indignities
From being constantly haunted
By children you never wanted.

My dad told me I shouldn’t sing
Because I didn’t have a musical voice.
So, of course, I felt I had to go
Prove him wrong. I didn’t have a choice.
You see, I knew for sure
From the early age of about ten years
That I was winning contests
And on stage getting lots of cheers.

First it was contests at fairs
And later it was in shows and events
At school, at church and some
Even took place in huge revival tents.
But he never spoke of these
Because he was seldom ever there.
He was either working late
Or home in his favorite big easy chair.

It would be years before I found
It was my actual voice he didn’t enjoy.
At first is was because I was young
And had the flutey piping sound of boy.
I chalked it up to style or poise,
But later, when I grew to be a tenor
I never had that manly sound.
High voiced men were automatically sinners.

So, I kept on singing, in night clubs
And plays and little theater around town
And got my applause from strangers
Because my father always let me down.
As you can probably tell from this
That betrayal still bothers me a little bit.
Sometimes words can hurt as much
As a drawing back and delivering a hit.

Is today the day I finally wake up
And start accepting that my life
Is not just something that happens
But something that comes from strife?
Will I finally agree that ambition,
If it is not present inside of me,
Sets me on no forward path at all,
And instead leaves me in entropy.

Will I see for myself, that battle
Is always being waged between
Getting where I really need to go
And some fairy tale in a magazine?
Will I quit looking at friendship
As a search for a good joke?
Or I will finally stop letting my skirt
Be a place for people to blow smoke?

Will I stop finding excuses for sloth
And do the harder things to succeed?
Will I finally see that there are more
Than two motivations, hunger and greed?
Will I take care of my moral housekeeping
As well as I do my home and my car?
When someone mentions caracter traits
Will I even know what those things are?

Every day of life when I was younger
It was always so easy to kick back
And do nothing much of anything about
Those tenets of true adulthood I lack.
I preferred to lie around on my ****
And let other people do all the work
Then have another can of beer, laugh
And call them all just mindless jerks.

All that was fine for endless decades
Then recently I began to look up and see
That my life is a tale of no headway made.
There were four constant pals, one was me.
With dead-end jobs, and dressed the same,
Just as we did when we were tweens.
Here we were middle-aged do-littles
Smoking dope in old 501 jeans.

So, I’m changing directions as of today.
I’m buying some decent clothes to wear,
Shaving my lip beard off right now
And taking some time to fix my hair.
I want to look on the outside as if I were
Less I was something inside more than dust.
I’ll get a real job, save money and then
I know I’ll do more than sit around and rust.

Please consider, when reading my poetry
It is poetry, it's not always autobiography.
I have a gift, to zip back and forth in time
And then to render that journey in rhyme.
I tell what I felt then and sometimes connect
It to the world today, to let you see correctly
What it has meant for me to be the real me
And to let you understand the me you see.

I feel that is my job, a journalist in rhyme,
Sometimes to paint pretty fantasies, and
Often to paint thoughtful pictures of what
I have come so solidly to understand.
I may tell of a time that hurt so much
That I set it down on paper to assimilate
A better outlook and to remember it all
So to learn before it becomes too late.

Sometimes I publish a piece to read
That someone is heartbroken for me
Because they are sweet enough to care
I might be going through a sad reality,
When the portrayal I made that worried
And shook them about my rhyme
Is a story from decades ago, a tale
That comes from a much earlier time.

If I learn this has happened, I tell
The truth about that instance
And make them feel better for it
When and if I might have the chance.
So, thank you my loving readers
For taking the time to even care.
I write to make an effect on you
But never, ever meaning to scare.